Dorota Danielewicz – Culture manager, Slavicist, author and journalist

Using one’s own voice in writing
 

Dorota Danielewicz also dedicated her book “Berlin. Przewodnik po duszy miasta” (“In Search of the Soul of Berlin”), which was published in 2013, to the subject of Berlin[21]. “I felt the urgent need to express myself in my own voice. In a way, this is also a summary of my emigration. That’s why I symbolically dedicated the book to my parents”, explains the author in the interview with “Porta Polonica”. In the blurb for the Polish edition, Olga Tokarczuk recommends the book as “a wonderful, sensitively written story about Berlin, its streets, squares and parks”. “However, this leisurely stroll above all lets you get to know the people of Berlin, this peculiar, multi-ethnic people that makes Berlin Central Europe in miniature, with its difficult, complicated history and its enormous, unbridled creative potential”, emphasises the future Nobel Prize winner. In Poland, “Berlin. Przewodnik po duszy miasta” was published in two editions. The second volume in the renowned “Poruszyć świat” series published by WAB came out in 2015. The book was very well received. When asked by the monthly magazine “Pani” about the most important reads of 2013, Szymon Hołownia (Sejm Marshal of the Republic of Poland for the 2023–25 legislative period) named “Auf der Suche nach der Seele Berlins” as the best book he had read at the time. The book soon found a German publisher, Europa Verlag, which has also published all of Dorota Danielewicz’s other literary works to date. “Christian Strasser from Europa Verlag is a publisher who gets really involved and takes risks. I’m so grateful to him for that”, Dorota stressed. The German edition was translated by Arkadiusz Szczepański[22]. It was created and edited with the German readership in mind and therefore contains completely new texts written by Dorota in German as an alternative. The first chapter is different, there are additional chapters in the text about the present day, anecdotes from the neighbourhood around Markusplatz, where the author has lived with her family for almost 30 years.

Dorota Danielewicz’s books are very emotionally charged and often contain autobiographical elements[23], something that is particularly evident in the book “Jans Weg”. The impetus for writing the book was a strike by mothers of disabled children in the parliament (Sejm) in Warsaw in 2018. As the mother of a terminally ill child with progressive gangliosidosis, which destroys the brain and impairs motor skills, Danielewicz decided to speak out. “Jans Weg” is a poignant story about a mother’s feelings that reads as if it were written in a single breath. It is a story of loss and suffering; but it is also a book that gives hope. It shows how to cope with the challenges posed by having a child with profound disabilities and how to find a way to keep going[24]. The author calls for a revolution of empathy. Both the initially published Polish as well as the German edition of “Jans Weg” generated great interest. The book was presented in Poland in the summer of 2020 in Kazimierz Dolny on the Vistula as part of the “Dwa Brzegi” (Two Banks) festival at an event with the then Commissioner for Civil Rights, Prof Adam Bodnar, now Minister of Justice of the Republic of Poland.

In the book “Der weisse Gesang. Die mutigen Frauen der belarussischen Revolution” (“The White Song. The courageous women of the Belarusian revolution”), Dorota Danielewicz draws poignant portraits of Belarusian political emigrants[25]. Of women who took an active part in the protests in Belarus after the dubious elections in August 2020, many of whom were imprisoned. The heroines of “Der weisse Gesang” had to flee from the repression to Poland or Lithuania. The book was written and published in German.

Audio guides and social causes
 

In recent years, Danielewicz has become increasingly involved in social causes. The publicist and writer particularly supports the German-Polish Society Berlin, of which she has been a supporting member for issues relating to contemporary Polish literature since November 2021. Since 2010, Danielewicz has chaired the jury of the German-Polish poetry competition for young people “Youth Writes Poems” (Młodzież pisze wiersze. Jugend schreibt Gedichte), organised by the association POLin Polnische Frauen in Wirtschaft und Kultur e.V. in Berlin. In 2018, Dorota Danielewicz also became a member of the jury for the ninth edition of the prestigious international Ryszard Kapuściński Prize, which is awarded in Warsaw for the best literary documentary book. She brought an outside perspective to the jury. From 2010 to 2016, Danielewicz was a member of a jury appointed by the State Secretary for Culture of the Berlin Senate to “promote intercultural project work”.

During the time the PiS party was in government in Poland from 2015 to 2023, Dorota Danielewicz played an active part in protests in Berlin to defend democracy, the rule of law and women’s rights in Poland. 

Since 2024, Danielewicz has been involved in the Kulturwandel (“Culture Change”) working group of the Berlin cooperative Cooperative Mensch (“Human Cooperative”) for the implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities of 2011.

The end of Dorota Danielewicz’s work at RBB / Funkhaus Europa coincided with the beginning of her collaboration with an audio guide company, where she is involved in translations and text productions. In Wawel Castle, in Wieliczka, in the Royal Łazienki Park, in Charlottenburg Palace, in Sanssouci Palace in Potsdam, in Berlin Cathedral, in Meissen Palace or in the Humboldt Forum in Berlin – her voice can be heard everywhere. These commercial commissions complement Danielewicz’s range of activities perfectly. And here, too, she is a mediator, especially between Poland and Germany. By conveying knowledge, she contributes to mutual understanding. 

Joanna de Vincenz, February 2024